Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Ack! Paint this scenario, a 21 year old freshmen college student who couldn’t wait to get into core programming and away from frivolous subjects such as HTML. Life was pretty mundane at the time. He had just started seeing his baby’s mama, working at the Southglen mall (assistant manager Orange Julius Baby!), and was well into the grind of college. Actually she was in college as well, so that made it busy... busy... busy. You know how that sh** goes.

The most accurate recollection of events happened like this:

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I was sitting in class when suddenly a facilities worker comes storming in (approximately sometime between 8:58 and 9:02 AM EST) and said a plane had hit the world trade center. Immediately I thought to myself “this guy is off his rocker”. After some brief deliberation from the class with this administrator (and having decided this guy is not bs’n), some of the classmates begin to ask if we would be dismissed to catch news coverage of the unfolding events. HERE’s the !! We were to continue class!! WTF! I almost choked on my chili cheese Frito! It wasn’t until we found out about the second plane hitting the south WTC tower about 10 minutes later that I was like “F this!” even though if any of us left class we were being counted absent and would be responsible for the day’s lecture. I remember then leaving; regardless of the crap our professor was pouring on us and started heading home aka back to mom’s house on Delaware St. Making of course along the way, all the standard phone calls on the mobile that I think everyone made during those precious moments when nearly 3,000 lives were lost. The one to mom, the one to the girlfriend, the one to your closest friends, etc…

While driving back home, I remember feeling a brief but utter sense of helplessness. I’ve always wanted to visit New York, even possibly live, and now it had been attacked!! Sudden flashes of war anger swelled inside of me and immediately I started to run through a plan of how I could postpone college, enlist and probably be deployed in time to help catch the bastards that did this. “But who?” Is all I could think to myself? Who would/could commit such an unimaginable act?! Come to found out…………… it was “who” of course, from Whoville. You know, lives with the Who’s and drinks who-lade.

Back to a serious note, I finally get home and immediately flip on the Tele to catch the CNN breaking news story. By this time, both WTC buildings 1 & 2 had fallen. Listening intently with every ounce of my being to CNN, then out of left field CNN mentions a lesser known WTC building (7) had also fallen, due in part to the structural damage of WTC 1 & 2. Then I began to hear continuing coverage regarding two other planes that had gone down. One reportedly slammed into the Pentagon and the other seemed to have been poised to crash into the White House; however, before this other plane could hit its intended target, it was miraculously brought down by the planes passengers and crew, thus crash landing into a field in Pennsylvania. I was like HOLY F**K! WTF is going on!!

It’s now about 6:00 PM EST and I was trying to decide whether I wanted to brave a work day. Yes, you heard that correctly. Brave a work day. I was freaking the f**k out. I thought that if hijackers could somehow steal 4 planes in one day, who’s to say they haven’t stolen a hundred planes already and that this sort of gesture would start being a frequent occurrence all over the domestic U.S. -- meaning, the mall I work at could somehow go under attack (after all we’re only several hours outside of NORAD). After that irrationality subsided, I gathered myself and began the 20 minute trek to work. I was so happy to see Jessica, Shannon, Ocean, Jenny and Fred when I finally got to work. They were just as horrified as I was. Speculation began to circulate. We were able to walk down to the Tilt arcade and catch some coverage on our breaks. That was when we were informed that possibly this was the work of none other than Al Qaeda, who in just a couple of years previous had tried taking down the same building with a car bomb in the basement during Clinton’s reign.

When I got home that evening around 11:00 EST and finally got to see my baby’s mama, we talked a little about the day’s events and how this would change the face of America forever. And that it did!

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Since Sept. 11th 2001…

All of us have poured over the footage, digested the material and have attempted to process what little facts we were presented. We have all seen the horrendous but very courageous and heroic acts of individuals like Jonathan Riley. Who in his last seconds of life was faced with the gravest of tests? Even though making the correct decision to jump (from what looked to be greater than 38 stories) rather than be crushed by 38 stories, he would lose his life that fateful day. Progressiveflow.net vows to make his memory live on.